


Valentine’s Day Surprise

by Amiyusesha



Series: HEA AU [5]
Category: Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, MHEA_Harlequin_2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22731016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amiyusesha/pseuds/Amiyusesha
Summary: Natasha and Clint's Valentine's Day goes slightly off script, but really, that only makes it better.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Series: HEA AU [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1603465
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10
Collections: MHEA Harlequin Hoopla Prompt Challenge 2020





	Valentine’s Day Surprise

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Valentine’s Day Suspense (supernatural/action, any rating) prompt.

Natasha pulled up next to the big white van with the three guys with a truck stencil on the side. She contemplated going in, but decided that had too much of a chance of getting her roped into Steve and Pietro’s Valentine’s Day cooking binge. Instead she picked up the new phone she’d purchased exclusively for communicating with her new boyfriend and his family and tapped one of only two numbers programmed into it.

“Hey Wanda! Let Clint know I’m here, would you?” Her boyfriend barreled out the building door before she and Wanda had even hung up, and the car was back in drive a moment later.

“Do I get to know where we are going yet?” Clint asked, eager as his dog around pizza.

“Nope.” Natasha told him. “Valentine’s day surprise.”

“I scheduled us for a chocolate tasting at Danny’s at eight.”

“We’ll be done with my planned events by then.”

“I didn’t know you owned a car.”

“I needed something to get around while working here.”

“Why an accord?”

“It’s the most common car on the roads in this state. It’s a car that doesn’t stand out.”

“Is dark gray the most common color?”

“It tends to bounce around between silver, black and white, but this was the best of the ones I could buy quickly and easily.”

“Huh. That’s no fun.”

“I can’t remember the last time I did anything just for fun before I met you. You are opening my eyes to a whole new world.”

“That makes me worried that I didn’t do a good enough job planning my part of this evening.”

“I think a chocolate tasting sounds amazing.” Clint thought burgers and games at Bartari, the bar in Scranton with all the old arcade games and pinball machines didn’t just _sound_ amazing. Clint had never been, and the two spent several hours trading quarters for beeping and lights before heading back to Valentine.

It was in the crowded parking lot at Danny’s their evening plans started to go off script. They pulled into the lot only a car behind Steve and Tony, and they paused to admire how HAPPY their friends looked. That was how they noticed the trio of goons following the oblivious pair. Natasha and Clint spilled out of their ride and scurried to interrupt the planned mugging. Clint cut the muggers off near the opening to the alley with a wide oblivious smile and a request for directions while Natasha sucked them into the alley one by one so smoothly and silently that not one person in the crowd noticed a bit of it happen.

Natasha kept a supply of zip ties in the car, and she was just finished tying up the last of the thugs she drug out of the alley like a drunken boyfriend when Clint slipped into the front seat. She glanced at the big white box in his lap curiously as she started the car. Clint responded by reaching into the box, pulling out a chocolate covered Strawberry and feeding it to her as she drove. “I didn’t want you to miss out on the chocolate tasting.” He said.

They ended up at an abandoned house on the outskirts of Valentine. They searched the goons, then snacked on chocolates while discussing what, if anything, the Chessmen patches the goons each sported meant. Clint thought it likely to be some sort of gang symbolism. Natasha wasn’t certain of that, but suspected that it at least meant that the Knight was more important than the two Pawns. They had little to say about their planned attack on Tony, beyond the insistence that they would never betray their Queen’s commands. Natasha surmised in short order that they didn’t have enough information to betray anything and called S.H.I.E.L.D. to come pick them up. Unwilling to wait the two hours the agents requested, Natasha also called Wanda to come babysit.

Natasha and Clint were in her car and on their way to New York 15 minutes later. Clint let Natasha drive in silence for a while before he cleared his throat. “I didn’t want to talk in front of those guys, but you’ve clearly got some ideas about the people hunting Tony, and I’ll help better if I know what we're doing.”

“I suspect those three are mercenaries, hired by someone calling themselves IronMonger. Pretty much all the attacks on Tony can be tracked back to that self same individual who seems to have access to endless amounts of money with which to hire mercenaries. IronMonger is also dealing Black Market Starktech. Whoever it is, they are walking through Stark industries security like it doesn’t exist and they have full access to Tony’s plans and schedule.”

“OK. So someone who works in the main offices at Stark tower?”

“More than that. Tony put me on the books as a his personal head of security a few days ago. When he did that he gave me a Master Pass card. There are six of them currently in existence and they work as a full access pass through Stark security systems. I know Tony didn’t share his dinner plans with anyone he works with, he was determined to handle his part of their date himself. The person who hired those goons and sabotaged his car have to have one of those passes.”

“So we are going to hit their offices and go through their computers?”

“You don’t have to come in with me. It ought to be quick, I’ll infiltrate their offices, clone their files and peek in their desk drawers.”

“Sounds fun. I’m in. Who are we targeting?”

“Virginia Potts, Tony’s Personal Assistant. Obadiah Stane, the partner Tony inherited from his father. Bambina Arbogast, Obadiah’s Personal Assistant and Indries Moomji Stark Industries’ new head of security.”

“I thought you were head of security.”

“I work for Tony. Indries works for Stark. She was hired by Stane after that horror show in Afghanistan.”

“Hmm. Might put Indries out of the running as Iron Monger, since she can’t have been the one who shared the pre-Afghanistan info.”

“True, but any of our suspects could have manipulated her into her current position.”

“What about motives? Who benefits with Tony gone?”

“Virginia is in Tony’s will. Obadiah would regain the complete control he had over Stark industries until Tony turned 24. Bambina is a major stock holder and Tony’s erratic behavior since his parents died has been bad for stock prices. If Indries has a motive it would be loyalty to someone else.”

“Unless Tony dated her.”

“As far as I know Tony hasn’t met her. Obadiah wants Tony to come meet her, but Tony is being really hands on with re-purposing the Scranton facility.”

New York is the City that Never Sleeps, but the inside of the Stark tower parking garage was dark and quiet a bit after midnight when the timeclocks were clicking over from Friday to Saturday. The doors and elevators were all as accepting of Natasha’s Master Pass as the equipment in the garage had been. Natasha guided him into the corporate overnight suite in which she had spent her last few nights. They both slipped out of their date night finery and into more durable clothes, Natasha wiggling into the same balck outfit she’d worn the day Tony was kidnapped, and Clint into sweat pants and a tank top he’d brought in his overnight bag.

The plan had always been to stay overnight in Natasha’s room at the tower, but when Clint had imagined building up a sweat after they arrived he had pictured a very different scenario. This was better he thought as he slowly lowered Natasha out of the vents and into their third office of the evening. Late night espionage combined the teamwork of a trapeze act with the thrill of breaking and entering. Knowing he was acting on the side of the angels for once was a thrill of its own. A thrill Natasha shared with him if the wicked sparkle in her eyes was to be believed.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the third and Final installment of my Valentines day 2020 fics.


End file.
